


Acceptance

by marquis1305



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Death, Destroy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marquis1305/pseuds/marquis1305
Summary: Acceptance is the final stage of grief.





	Acceptance

There are worse things than death.

 

Shepard would know. 

 

After all, she’d been dead once before. And now, on the Crucible, she knew that she was going to die again. Feeling the kick of the pistol in her hand made that a certainty. 

 

Same as the feeling of suffocating had made it a certainty the last time. 

 

This certainly was far from the first time that she had experienced the rush of pain, adrenaline pumping through her body as it tried to survive what her mind had already accepted as absolute truth. 

 

Maybe this time they would let her stay down. 

 

The first explosion caused a ringing in her ears, the same as she had heard when the Collectors had torn through the Normandy. She could almost see the flash of green that was Joker’s eyes among the flame. 

 

She would never be able to apologize for taking EDI from him now. 

 

She hoped that he would forgive her.

 

She kept running.

 

The way she had when she was making the final desperate dash towards the Citadel. When she left Garrus behind in Vega’s arms. A promise made and broken all in less than a minute.

 

Garrus would find those white sandy beaches. Vega might help him. They would both lift a drink, silently, and pour out a serving for her. Brother’s bond in loss and blood. 

 

She hoped that they could find their families… they would need them. They would need each other more.

 

The gun was warm in her hand, funny how she would notice that amidst all the fires about her. She thought of the whisky smooth smile of Kaidan’s lips. The way they had once tasted of fire. The way that fire had consumed her on a nowhere settlement on horizon, and how he had taken the warmth of it with him as he walked away… 

 

The way that warmth had returned when he held her when she finally broke beneath the strain.

 

She couldn’t breathe. 

 

Why was it that she could never seem to escape suffocation in the end?

 

_ Siha... _

 

Shepard smiled. The last shot in her pistol firing off. 

 

The final explosion crashing down around her. 

 

But the pain in her chest had finally eased. The pain that had been lodged there since she had watched the sword enter Thane’s chest.

 

Since she had suffocated for the first time without dying.

 

_ Siha… I told you that we would be joined once more… And now that we have all the time in the Galaxy, all the time I have is yours to take… _

 

Acceptance is the final stage of grief. She could accept this. 

 

She could only hope that the others would.

**Author's Note:**

> Needing to shake off the fluff rut that I've been working on. And get out a little drabble to help kickstart my writing once more.


End file.
